The Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) fails to properly maintain and make the necessary repairs to the city’s public parks and recreational areas so that many of them are in a bad state which can be a safety and health danger to its users and is detrimental to Macau’s image, the Commission of Audit (CA) said in a hard-hitting report on Thursday.

The report also says that the bureau’s “insufficient” management of the city’s public leisure spaces is also causing a negative impact on public opinion about the government.

Consequently, the report says, the bureau must shoulder its responsibility by ensuring the public leisure spaces’ “proper” management.

The report points out that the bureau paid about 99 million patacas last year for the maintenance of, and repairs to facilities in the city’s public parks and recreational areas, as well as for outsourced security services and cleaning and greening services in these areas as well as roundabouts and green areas at the roadside.

The bureau outsources some of the cleaning services, according to the report.

The report says that while the bureau spends a significant amount of money on the management of its municipal facilities every year, the commission still found that a large number of the facilities were damaged, some of which even presented a safety or health risk to its users.

The report suggests that the bureau should improve its mechanism on the maintenance of, and repairs to its municipal facilities. The bureau should make the necessary repairs in a timely manner to the facilities which present safety and health risks to the public, as well as exercise stronger supervision over its contractors.

The report can be downloaded from the commission’s website http://www.ca.gov.mo/, in Chinese and Portuguese language versions.(Macau News / The Macau Post Daily)